26 September 2014

Posted by
Mike Brubaker

When does two make three? When one half of a pair is doubled of course. In this case it is the two musicians and three cornets of the Esperantoj Artisto. On the left stands a woman playing a cornet while her gentleman partner holds two brass instruments to his lips. One is an ordinary cornet in his right hand while the larger instrument in his left a flugelhorn. He has a very uncommon skill to vibrate his lips simultaneously on both sides of his mouth.

The woman's elaborate embroidered dress with pearls and sequined butterflies could only be suitable for a music hall artist. This French postcard has no postmark but dates from around 1910. Google's Translate considers their name to be in the artificial language of Esperanto.

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Not only could this duo play trios on cornets but they also played the cor de chasse, the true French hunting horn. This instrument has no valves so the Esperantaj Artisoj musicians demonstrate it in the traditional manner with the bell held up to both left or right.

The sound of the hunting horn is quite loud and raucous, which is appropriate for an outdoor instrument. In France it is commonly played by groups of cor de chasse players arranged with the musicians turning their backs and the horn bells towards the audience. Another copy of this image has a postmark date of 1909.

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In this postcard, the duo has changed sides and Monsieur plays two cornets while his female partner holds the flugelhorn. Their name has changed to Les Gouget, Virtuoses musiciens.

Monsieur Gouget is dressed in formal white tie and tail coat, and wears a medal on his coat pocket. Perhaps it it a prize for most duets by one musician. Madame Gouget wears a longer embroidered gown, but I think her sensible stage shoes are the same as in the previous photos.

Making the fingers work six valves and buzzing a doubled sound with the lips into two brass mouthpieces is difficult but not impossible. But tonguing is another matter. It would take quite a special technique to get the right rhythmic articulation while playing two brass instruments at once. That would be real artistry!

Did Madame develop this same talent?

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In this last card the duo has made yet another name change, this time to English, as:

Both musicians hold a cor de chasse at the ready, and evidently they considered themselves world class artists as seen by their white traveling outfits. Monsieur Gouget wears a kind of colonial officers uniform with tropical topee hat while Madame Gouget is dressed in a short skirt and jacket with a kind of automobile touring hat. And both wear very high and tight fitted boots.

What music did the Gougets play? Did they include other instruments or more musicians? Did they make costume changes in their act?

We may never find those answers but they surely captured the attention of any music hall audience.

Among my family photographs, there is a photo made in the 1920s of my grandmother Blanche Dobbin that makes a match with the Sepia Saturday theme. Not yet 20 years old she sits perched on the back of her cousin's motorcycle, outside his home in Washington D.C.

Many years later when I was in my 20s and still in college, I bought a motorcycle and once gave my grandmother a very short ride. I doubt we went any faster than 40 mph but she had quite a thrill, no doubt remembering this long ago moment with her cousin.

19 September 2014

Once upon a time there was a prince who lived in a grand palace. On summer evenings, he and his beautiful wife enjoyed nothing better than to listen to their children play music together.

Until one day when it all vanished in a flash.

These might be the opening lines of a fairy tale, except that it is a true story.

It begins with a photo postcard of three musical children whose father was the Erzherzog Leopold Salvator, an Austrian Archduke of the Habsburg-Lorraine royal family. His oldest son Rainer sits at an ornate grand piano, while younger brother Leopold and sister Antonie stand on either side holding
violins. The photographer, Nashbruck Verg. (?), has left a nice embossed logo in the lower right corner with a date of 1908. Notice that the two boys wear sandals under their sailor suits and short
pants, which seems a very modern footwear for the 1900s.

But Rainer, Leopold, and Antonie were just three of 10 children of the Erzherzog Leopold Salvator (1863 – 1931) and his wife, the Infanta Blanca of Spain (1868 – 1949). Altogether there were 5 boys and 5 girls. Antonie, or more properly Maria Antonia, had 3 older sisters. In this next postcard, father Leopold sits on the left with his youngest child, Karl Pius, and mother Blanca stands center.

All the children shared the title Erzherzog, or Erzherzogin for the girls, which translates from German as Archduke or Archduchess. It came by way of their father, Archduke Leopold Salvator. Though he was born in Bohemia, Leopold was a member of the Tuscan, Italy branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine which was one branch of a very complicated family tree of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Archduke Karl Salvator and Princess Maria Immaculata of the Bourbon-Two Sicilies, who produced 10 children. He was also the grandson of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Archduchess Blanca was the eldest child of Carlos, Duke of Madrid, a claimant to both the throne of Spain and the throne of France too, and his wife Princess Margherita of Bourbon-Parma. The title Infanta is used in Spain to signify a daughter of royal blood. However Blanca's father was born in Slovenia, and her mother in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy.

This tangled lineage of royal houses was once common knowledge in past centuries when royalty was the only celebrity status that mattered. In 1908, noble blood lines were particularly convoluted in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as it held a great many national groups in what was then a very large country.

As one of many Archdukes in the Austrian nobility, Leopold Salvator was given various state duties by Emperor Franz Josef who was simultaneously Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary in a political arrangement that kept the two principal parts of the empire, Austria and Hungary, on a more or less equal status. This created the uniquely Austrian German term kaiserlich und königlich meaning Imperial and Royal, usually abbreviated k.u.k. Leopold found service in the k.u.k. army as an inspector of artillery and seems to have had an excellent tailor for his magnificent uniforms. Did you spot his spurs in the previous photo? Leopold was a first cousin and exact contemporary with the Emperor's nephew and heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was also born in 1863 to Leopold's mother's sister.

In this postcard, the Salvator family stands outside on the terrace of one of their residences in Vienna. Only seven children and the family dog are with their parents. Missing is the very youngest son and two oldest daughters. Infanta Blanca was very proud of her Spanish heritage and took special efforts to give her many children an education suitable for their high ranking position in a multinational society. In 1944 a book about the second youngest son, Archduke Franz Josef, was written by Bertita Harding. It is entitled Lost Waltz: A Story of Exile and in it she describes details of mother Blanca.

Of greater importance than her accent was the Infanta's
choice of reading matter. For entertainment of the younger
children she kept on hand the Contes de Fees or fairy tales
published by Hachette's famed Bibliotheque Rose Illustre. This fascinating gold-beveled edition was garnished
with steel engravings that were either of a cloying sweetness, adored by the very young, or else capable of arousing
the most horrendous fright.

Here were the old familiar stories, dear to childhood everywhere. But with a difference. Due to the Infanta's zeal
for variation, which in her case was phonetically no variation at all, the listeners became at times confused. Mama
liked reading the same tale successively in four tongues,
which called for mental agility on the part of her audience.
Quite early the children learned that Cinderella was at the
same time Cendrillon in French, Cenicienta in Spanish and
Aschenbroedel in German. Equally Little Red Riding Hood
became Petit Chaperon Rouge, Caperucita Roja, or Rotkappchen, while the dread figure of Bluebeard reappeared
as Barbe Bleue, Barba Azul, or the ominous Blaubart.

The Salvator family home in the city of Vienna was known as the Palais Toskana, a palatial residence built in 1867 in the neo-classic style. I suspect that the previous photos were taken at this home.

Archduchess Maria Antonia (1899 – 1977) was baptized with the names Maria Antonia Roberta Blanka Leopoldina Karole Josepha
Raphaela Michaela Ignatia Aurelia, but was called Mimi by her family. One can only wonder what pedigree names were given to the dogs, but this alert dog standing by her was more than a family pet.

On June 28, 1914 Maria Antonia's cousin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo. A month later Austria and the rest of Europe was at war.

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Archduke Rainer (1895 – 1930) was born in Agram, now known as Zagreb, Croatia. His full name was Rainer Karl Leopold Blanka Anton Margarete Beatrix Peter Joseph Raphael Michael Ignaz Stephan.As the eldest son of Archduke Leopold his future was planned for him from birth, and service in the Emperor's k.u.k. army was a duty in time of war.

In 1914 at the start of World War I, both Rainer, age 19, and Leopold, age 18, joined an artillery regiment as lieutenants, no doubt through their father's influence. Leopold distinguished himself in 1917 at the Battle of Medeazza, near Trieste, Italy and was awarded the prestigious Order of the Golden Fleece by his great uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph in one of the last honors given by the old Emperor who died in 1916.

(How the Emperor managed to do this months after his death is not explained in Leopold's Wikipedia entry so we will have to accept this as part of the fairy tale. Perhaps the Golden Fleece was a prize for some other good conduct)

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In this wartime photo with their mother, the two young officers wear more elaborate dress uniforms. Rainer leans against a piano, which is similar to the one in the 1908 photo but it has different legs. On the wall behind them are portraits of two sisters. Can you spot the sandals?

This photo may have been taken at the family's country residence, a large estate on the edge of the famed Vienna Woods, called Schloss Wilhelminenberg. This very grand house had previously belonged to another royal member of the Salvator family tree who had died childless, and in 1913 it was inherited by Archduke Leopold Salvator.

The first version of this house was built in 1781 but by 1903 it had became dilapidated and was demolished and rebuilt in the new Second Empire style. In the book Lost Waltz: A Story of Exile there is this description:

At Schloss Wilhelminenberg there were eighty-six servants, all told. This included chauffeurs, grooms, stableboys, valets, cooks, maids, gardeners, gatekeepers, laundresses, dressmakers, mending women, and the nursemaid Resi. Most of these workers, with the exception of the valets, personal maids, and Resi, were housed in separate quarters adjoining the mews, some fifty meters below the archducal home. Daily an administrator set the wheels of the great estate in motion, taking stock of the produce from vegetable and fruit gardens, as well as budgeting the household's needs.

During the war it was converted for use as an army hospital, as was the Archduke Salvator's in-town residence, the Palais Toskana. However the music room of the Schloss Wilhelminenberg probably continued as a center for family concerts. This next photo, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows the Salvator family arranged in a splendid room. Maria Antonia is on the left by her father, and behind her is an older sister with a violin while another brother, Franz Josef, sits at yet one more ornate piano. In the center standing behind his father and sporting a maturing mustache, is Rainer surprisingly with a rotary valve trumpet tucked under one arm.

It looks like a very happy family. But as this must be around 1917 or 1918, they can not know that days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are soon to come to an end.

Archduke Leopold Salvator and his wife Infanta Blanca
with their ten children
Source: Wikipedia

The end of the Great War of 1914-1918 brought dramatic changes to many countries where monarchies were dissolved in favor of new forms of government. For an Austrian Archduke whose country was on the losing side, this was especially troubling. The life of privilege and entitlement that Leopold and his family had enjoyed for generations came to a crashing halt. There was no longer an emperor or king to serve, and the Austro-Hungarian empire was divided into multiple new nations. The property of royal households was taken over by the new state governments, and Archduke Leopold's personal wealth of lavish houses, fancy uniforms, and gilded pianos was lost forever.

Thankfully no one in this family lost their life in the war but things were never the same after 1918. Archduke Leopold and Infanta Blanca would not recognize the new Austrian republic and were forced to leave Vienna and become exiles from their homeland. Their royal family connections to France and Italy offered no benefit as these countries had been at war with Austria, so Blanca sought asylum in Spain which was granted only after she and her children renounced any claim to the Spanish throne. They moved into a modest house in Barcelona. In 1931 while on a trip to Austria in an effort to recover some of his confiscated properties, Leopold Salvator died at age 67. Now a widow without support, Blanca and three of her children moved back to Vienna, ironically renting three rooms in their former home, the Palais Toskana. When Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, they moved to Viareggio,Italy where they ran a small vineyard until her death in 1949.

Brothers Rainer and Leopold, were allowed to remain in Vienna after renouncing all claims to the Austrian throne. For a time Rainer ran a auto garage and then a motorcycle service delivering film reels to cinemas. In 1930 at age 35 he died of blood poisoning in Vienna. He never married.

Leopold stayed in Vienna as bit longer, but after a failed marriage ended in 1931, he moved to the United States, eventually ending up as a factory worker in Connecticut where he died in 1958.

Maria Antonia stayed with her parents on the move to Barcelona. When her parents become concerned that she might take holy orders and become a nun, she was sent to the Island of Mallorca where she fell in love with a man who belonged to family of minor Spanish nobility. They married and lived in Mallorca with their five children until his death in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Seeing no prospects in Spain, Maria Antonia emigrated with her children to Uruguay where she married for a second time in 1942. She died in Brazil in 1977.

The grand estate of Schloss Wilhelminenberg was sold to a
Swiss banker after the war in 1922, but he lost it in foreclosure to the city of Vienna. For a time
it was used by the celebrated Vienna Boys Choir, and in the next war reverted to use as a military hospital. It is now run as a hotel.

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For thousands of years, musicians depended on royal
patronage. Being a member of the aristocratic class meant having lots of
leisure time for the appreciation of high culture. The pages of music
history are filled with references to noble princes hiring musicians,
commissioning composers, or engaging music teachers for their children.
Many great musicians like Mozart and Beethoven supplemented their
income by giving music lessons to children of royal families. For boys
the music was only a recreation but for girls it could be their primary
education, as daughters were considered more marriageable if they had
accomplishments on a musical instrument. That relationship between royalty and musicians changed just as dramatically with the end of World War One.

The photos of Archduke Leopold Salvator and his family intrigue me
because of their evident love of music. We can not know how serious the
children were at learning a musical instrument but the instruments were
clearly important enough to be included in these formal Salvator family photos. I
don't believe this was a common practice of other wealthy and illustrious
Austrian families, so I think it indicates a special family pride in musical accomplishments.

But the thing that really interests me about these images is that they are postcards. For whom were these postcards made? None of these photos were ever sent through the mail and only two have a name of a collector imprinted on the back. Did cousins across the many branches of the Hapsburg family tree exchange them on the holidays? Were they sold at the corner newsstand like other ordinary tourist postcards? Why did a member of a royal family go to such efforts to have fine photographs made into postcards?

Uncovering the detail about the many domestic servants employed at Archduke Leopold's Schloss Wilhelminenberg got me thinking about a larger family unseen behind the camera. Many household servants probably spent their entire lives looking after royal children, from infancy to adulthood. Despite the differences in class and position, many servants must have developed an affectionate attachment to their royal charges. What could be a better gift for 86 family servants than a collection of souvenir postcard portraits of the Salvator family?

I'm happy to entertain other ideas about why the postcards were made, but this seems to me as good an explanation as any. It is also another example of a class relationship that was destroyed by war and the subsequent collapse of the European monarchies.

Fairy tales do not always end well.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturdayclick the link for more sailor suits.

About This

This is a web gallery of antique photographs of musicians. Most are of people whose names are now lost in time but they represent the many kinds of players, instruments, and ensembles that once defined musical culture.But these photographs also capture a moment in the history of people and places, so I write about that too.

All the photos shown here are in my personal collection.

For Best EffectClick on the Imagesfor a Larger View

For information on my music for horn - go to the bottom of this column.